Youth is wasted on the young
by Hawk
Summary: AU. Tsunade awakens from a deccades long coma, with a spotty recollection and hazy memories of her former life, having to adapt to a wastly different world...


Youth is wasted on the young R  
Niklas "Hawk" Jonsson

Summary: AU. Tsunade awakens from a deccades long coma, with a spotty recollection and hazy memories of her former life, having to adapt to a wastly different world...

Disclaimer: Naruto, Konoha and whatnot are not mine, though I certainly wish they were. The story is mine though, all mine.  
If the layout looks screwy or symbols seems to be missing, you're probably reading the quickedit-mangled version of this fic on ff dot net, if it grates on your nerves too much, read it on hawksgalaxy dot com or something.

Feedback/Flames: Yes, please. Both of them are equally fun to read, although I must admit that I greatly prefer the first variety. :)  
I can be found on ICQ as 21771860, MSN Messenger/E-mail as iamhawk at yahoo dotcom, though not very frequently as real life lately interferes with my online existance more then I'd like. More stories are available at my nifty lil' site at hawksgalaxy dot com or by clicking on my handle up above.

"speech"  
emphasis/shouts/Kindred Domination/post-hypnotic triggers  
/thoughts/  
/telepathy/  
translation  
+soundeffect/radio/telephone conversation/TV+

Writer rant

Hehe, well, seeing as how I first posted this thing on TFF back in the beginning of december 2005 and haven't changed much of it in all that time, except for some spellchecking, I figured it was time to unleash it upon the world.

Enjoy.

And as for those of you being annoyed at the lack of updates on my other stories, that's the reason. Once shit winds up on TFF, it stays there for quite a bit until I recall having finished something, cleans it up and uploads it to ff dot net. So before y'go on nagging me for an update to something, check TFF for it first. Chances are that it's available there.

Rantmode off

* * *

Chapter One:

/Nawaki... Dan... I wonder what they would think of this... Nawaki would probably tease me, accuse me of being vain. Dan, I wonder what.../

"Tsunade! No! Focus for crying out loud!"

Tsunade looked up in surprise at the outburst, blinking in surprise as she saw a horrified Jiraiya standing in the doorway to her private office. She wondered what he was going on about this time, when she felt something... Wrong!

She concentrated on the Chakra she was weaving and paled as she realized what it was that had made Jiraiya so nervous. Her distraction had completely messed up her weaving and the experimental age-halting jutsu she was about to try out for the first time, was about to fail.

She hastily refocused on the flows of Chakra she was weaving and tried to snap them back into a more correct alignment, but it was too late. The flows had already settled and whatever effect they were going to have like this, was already starting to take place.

"No!" she cried out in protest as she felt her mind go all muddled, her sense of perception getting all screwed up. This wasn't supposed to affect her mind, damnit! Just what had she been... What was... Tsunade shook her head and suppressed a yawn. Tired... She was so tired...

Jiraiya kept on looking with a horrified expression as the woven Chakra slowly seeped into Tsunade. He wasn't sure what she was trying to do, or had been trying to do as he entered, but the distracted look on her face as she wove such a complicated pattern couldn't be good for whatever she had been aiming for.

He gasped as Tsunade suddenly jerked, letting out a surprised gargle, before she closed her eyes and slumped where she stood. He hastily darted forward and caught her before she tumbled to the floor, then took off towards the hospital at top speed.

Unfortunately, the only medic Nin who might have had a chance of explaining what was happening was Tsunade herself. The medic Nins, Jiraiya, Orochimaru and even Sarutobi, were completely stumped and could only watch as Tsunade failed to respond to any attempts to rouse her from her torpor.

Several more attempts were made to rouse her from her sleep, but all of them failed. Eventually, she was placed in a room at the hospital with an IV drip keeping her body supplied with nutrients, as she slept away the years.

The changes made to her body were subtle, but after a couple of years had passed, the medics who cared for her unconscious body started to note that she was regressing in age, slowly shrinking in height and gaining a more youthful appearance as time inorexibly passed.

The Kyuubi attacked and Tsunade never even stirred, resting on in blissful ignorance until more then twelve years had passed since that disastrous day.

* * *

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"Ugh..."

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"God, what an awful noise. Mommie, turn off the alarm, would you? I wanna sleep a little longer..."

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"I SAID, TURN IT OFF!"

"What's all this racket, you know that nobody is supposed to... Be... In... Oh my god..."

"Mom? Izzat you?"

"Doctor! Doctor! Come quick! Tsunade-sama is awake!"

* * *

"What is this crap? Ground up liver from some captured Nin or something!" an annoyed voice demanded to know and Sarutobi couldn't prevent his lips from quirking up into a happy smile and a few tears from emerging, as he heard a voice he'd longed to hear for almost four decades.

He entered the room and his smile widened as he saw his old pupil arguing passionately with an intimidated nurse who'd apparently brought Tsunade some hospital food.

"Now, now, Tsunade-kun. You shouldn't terrify the staff so." he said and Tsunade whipped her head around, focusing an angry glare at her old teacher. She opened her mouth to say something, then fell silent, glaring even harder at him. "Tsunade-kun?" Sarutobi asked as he saw the confused expression in her eyes and bewildered expression.

"S... Sensei? Sarutobi-sensei?" Tsunade eventually asked hesitantly, looking him up and down, her gaze staying longer at his face every time she came to it. "Geez, you've gotten old! How long was I out!"

"Yes, it's me, Tsunade-kun." Sarutobi replied. "How much have the doctors told you?" he asked cautiously.

"Not a damned thing!" Tsunade groused. "Where's mom? And pops? I can understand if pops couldn't make it, but I expected mom to be here a lot more quickly."

"Tsunade... How much do you remember of what happened to you?" Sarutobi asked, feeling slightly nauseous as he heard Tsunade refer to her parents that had died several years before she fell into her coma.

"Not a damned thing!" Tsunade growled. "I was training with Jiraiya and Orochimaru, I went home, I ate my supper, I went to bed and when I woke up, I'm in a damned hospital and nobody is willing to tell me anything!" she explained and focused a deadly glare at him. "Now listen here sensei and listen good! I want an explanation, I want decent food and I want my clothes. AND I WANT THEM FIVE MINUTES AGO!"

"Oh, boy..." Sarutobi sighed, shaking his head. This was going to take a while.

It did take a while, as a matter of fact. It was rather painful too, he reflected as he gently rubbed a bruised portion of his left cheek. Despite the changes Tsunade had been through, she still retained at least some of her legendary strength. She was in remarkably good health, considering the fact that all the nourishment she'd gotten over the last four decades had been through an IV drip, but the passing of the years had clearly robbed her of a lot.

Or perhaps she'd merely been holding back out of respect for her teacher.

The third Hokage closely scrutinized his old student, noting all the changes she'd gone through during her unconsciousness. She didn't look like the sixty year old woman she should be, nor like the mid-twenties woman she'd been when she messed up some new technique and fell into the weird trance/coma she'd been in for the last four decades.

No, she looked more like she had in her mid teens. She was thinner, her limbs not quite as full and her face looked a bit more drawn'n haggard, but he didn't think that'd last long. Once she'd been on solid foods for a couple of weeks, she'd no doubt regain a more healthy appearance.

Her temper was just as short as it had been at that age too. But what worried him the most, was that she couldn't remember much past her sixteenth year of age. When he talked about a few things that had passed since then, she'd occasionally spoken up and added some to his story, so she still recalled a few things, even if her recollection of them were murky and hap-hazard at best, inexistent at worst.

"So... My family is... Gone? All of them?" Tsunade asked again and Sarutobi nodded again. "Oh." Tsunade sighed and looked out of the window with a sad expression. "I think I remember some of father's funeral." she offered after a while, before she shook her head to clear her mind off all those bad memories. "What about Orochimaru, Sarutobi-sensei?" she asked eagerly, before her expression twisted into a disgusted expression. "And Jiraiya? I think I'd like to see how that dirty pervert has aged! I betcha Orochimaru still looks as hot as ever though!"

"Jiraiya is well. He was in the Earth country last I heard. He's distanced himself from the village over the years. He sends the occasional letter and keeps me informed of what he finds out during his travels, but it's been nearly five years since last he visited." Sarutobi replied and nodded at the flowers in the window and the bedside table on her right. "Those are from Jiraiya. The Yamanaka flower shop has a standing order from him to keep your room supplied with fresh flowers."

"And Orochimaru?" Tsunade asked and Sarutobi sighed with a sad expression, which caused Tsunade to gasp with horror. "He isn't dead, is he!" she shrilly demanded to know.

"No." Sarutobi replied after a few moments. He really felt his age at the moment and sighed again. "He's alive."

"But? Come on, Sarutobi-sensei. I can sense a BIG but here!" Tsunade pleaded.

"Shortly after you fell into your coma, Orochimaru started to devote his every waking hour to studying your condition and caring for you. He refused to accept any missions and only left the hospital when he was too tired to read medical scrolls or examine your unusual state." Sarutobi replied and got a far-away expression as he recalled the years gone by. "At first, we believed that it was merely because he was concerned about you..."

"I KNEW that he liked me! I knew that all that standoffish crap was all just an act!" Tsunade exclaimed, big hearts in her eyes as she wished that she could have been awake to see it.

"He grew forgetful and distracted, pilfering books from the scroll library without returning them. When one of the medic Nins needed a scroll that Orochimaru had borrowed, he couldn't drag Orochimaru away from his research on your condition, so he broke into his home to recover the scroll." Sarutobi continued with an emotionless voice. "While searching for the scroll, he uncovered an entrance to a hidden tunnel. The tunnel led to a secret underground research laboratory. What he found there..."

"What? What did he find?" Tsunade asked, turning paler by the second as it was obvious that whatever Sarutobi had to reveal, wasn't good.

"Orochimaru had apparently been searching for some way to achieve immortality. When you fell into your unusual state and it became clear that not only wasn't your body detoriating, but actually growing younger, he apparently believed that he'd found what he was looking for. He'd put his other 'research' on the back burner, fortunately enough, as he preformed that 'research' on living humans. According to his research notes and journal, he was responsible for if not all, then at least the lions share of a streak of unresolved kidnapping cases over a period of several years." the Hokage explained. "The medic Nin released the prisoners, grabbed whatever notes he could and went straight to the ANBU, who notified me."

"Oh no..." Tsunade whispered with a terrified and horrified expression.

"We tried to apprehend him, but..." Sarutobi admitted and shrugged. "He got away and was declared a missing Nin. Konoha's hunter Nins have been trying to kill him for the last thirty years, but he's still out there, as far as I know."

"No... No... No... It can't be true! Please, Sarutobi-sensei, tell me that it isn't true!" Tsunade pleaded, tears streaming down her cheeks. "He... He was the best of all of us!"

"Unfortunately not, Tsunade-kun. It's true. I saw his research myself and he admitted to it all, when we tried to arrest him." the Hokage revealed, causing Tsunade to collapse into a crying fit. "There, there, child..." he murmured as he approached the bed and wrapped his arms around his former student, comforting her as she mourned the loss of her believed to be true love.

* * *

It took another three weeks, before Tsunade was released from the hospital, much to her increasing annoyment. These three weeks had given her ample time to rant about the dubious parentage of the medic Nins who refused to give her a clean bill of health. According to Tsunade, they were all apparently descended from unwed mothers who were also intelligence-hampered dogs of the female variety, while their fathers were apparently domesticated farm animals with incestuous inclinations. ( Translation: The medics were bastards, their mothers were stupid bitches and their fathers were motherfucking pigs. )

She had been instructed to come see the Hokage in his office, but instead she'd spent the day wandering about Konoha, trying to see the city she recalled in the city around her. A lot had changed over the years. The major landmarks were mostly unchanged, though the Hokage monument now had a fourth face on it that she didn't recognize. The administrative offices were the same as ever, the Hyuuga manse hadn't changed a bit and so forth. The Uchiha compound had apparently been abandoned sometime in the past however. The walls around Konoha were a little taller then she remembered and she could swear that they covered a larger area then they had as well.

Her family home had been turned into a museum, depicting Konoha's history. She spent almost five hours there, looking into what had happened during her long absence. She found out what had happened to the Uchiha clan. The west and south walls had been torn down during an attack by Nins from the Hidden Stone village, who'd unleashed a series of earthquakes upon Konoha during their assault. The unknown guy on the Hokage monument was the fourth Hokage, who'd apparently died while defeating some nine-tailed demon that had attacked the village twelve years ago. When he died, Sarutobi had become the Hokage once again.

She faintly recalled the fourth as one of Jiraiya's students. Insolent little brat, he had been.

She still couldn't get over the fact that her old goat of a teacher had become the Hokage. She recalled him as The Professor, a dirty-minded old man who while a good teacher, had shown considerable bad judgement by accepting the creep Jiraiya as a student.

She felt a sharp pain in her chest, as she recalled that Jiraiya hadn't been the creep, but that Orochimaru had!

When she eventually left the museum that had been her old home, she headed for the Hokage's office to see what the old goat wanted with her.

"Yo, old goat." she greeted him as she strolled into his office, where he was hunched over a pile of scrolls behind his desk.

"Tsunade-kun. I was expecting you quite a few hours ago." he greeted her with faint traces of ire in his voice.

"Ah, shove it. I had to check out the old place and see if I recognized any of my old friends." Tsunade retorted dismissively.

"Ah. Did you?" he asked curiously.

"I think I saw Mizuho at the market, but I'm not sure." Tsunade replied after a few moments. "I saw the spitting image of Hyuuga Taro-dono however."

"That would be his eldest son, Hyuuga Hisashi. He's the Clan Leader now." the Hokage revealed.

"Hah! That snivelling little cry-baby, Clan Leader! Oh, how far the mighty Hyuuga have fallen." Tsunade cried out in a dramatic manner, before she started laughing. "Snotnose Paleeyes, a clan head? Geez, what is the world coming to?"

"He's turned out pretty well, actually. He's not the boy you once knew any longer, Tsunade-kun." the Hokage gently reprimanded her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. What was it that you wanted, Sarutobi-sensei?" Tsunade asked of her old teacher.

"Since you were the last of your line and unavailable for so long, your family home isn't available to you at the moment." Sarutobi began.

"Yeah, I know. It's some museum of Konoha history now." Tsunade said with a faint shrug.

"I'll have them move out, but it'll take a while. So, you don't have a place to stay at the moment." Sarutobi stated and Tsunade gasped.

"Hell! I didn't even think of that! Where am I going to stay!" she demanded to know as realization struck.

"I've found an apartment for you to live in until your ancestral home is cleaned out." the Hokage replied.

"I can't pay for that!" Tsunade protested. "And I won't let you do that either!" she added before her old teacher could say anything.

"Actually, you can." Sarutobi revealed. "You were fairly well off, despite your bad habits, before you fell into your trance. Your accounts were still open and the museum board has been paying you rent for the use of your manse for the last twenty-three years. You're probably one of the richest persons in Konoha."

"I'm rich? Really?" Tsunade asked with surprised delight, before something Sarutobi had said registered and made her instantly suspicious. "'Were still open'?"

"Ah, yes..." Sarutobi said, clearing his throat. "Now that you're awake, I didn't want you to drink and gamble away your fortune, so I took the liberty of arranging matters for you."

"Arrange, how?" Tsunade demanded to know, directing a furious glare at her old teacher.

"While you're technically in your sixties, you're physically and emotionally a teenager. I arranged it so that I'm your legal guardian for now. I put your money in a trust fund that will handle all your living expenses and give you an allowance of twenty thousand Ryou a month." Sarutobi replied. "When I think you're ready for it or when I die, whichever comes first, you'll be given free rein over your money. Until then, you're not getting a Ryou more then those twenty thousand a month unless you can convince me of the need for it."

"When you die, huh?" Tsunade asked, cracking her knuckles with a menacing glare at her old teacher. "That can be arranged..." she muttered darkly.

The medics at the hospital were quite surprised when the Third Hokage showed up rather unceremoniously at the main entrance to the hospital. He was winded and rather bruised, though not actually seriously injured, as he fell from the sky in front of a surprised patient leaving the hospital, who alerted the medics.

/Well, she took that rather well.../ Sarutobi reflected as he was fuzzed over by a team of medics. /Got her strength back too, from the feel of it.../ he mused, rubbing his jaw in a mixture of pride and pain.

* * *

"Stupid old geezer..." Tsunade muttered as she looked up at the place she was supposed to be staying. She had intimidated one of the Hokages assistants into telling her where the apartment the Hokage had arranged for her was and handing over the keys for it, which wasn't all that difficult as he'd stormed into the office just in time to witness Tsunade slapping the old man around some, before she threw him out of his office window in the general direction of the hospital.

It would do well enough she supposed, she didn't care overly much about where she was staying, as long as she had somewhere to place a futon, somewhere to cook, a toilet and a bathroom. She used the key and hastily surveyed her new digs, shrugging once she was done. It was nothing special, but it'd do just fine. She had a fair-sized kitchen, a living room, a room which she was going to use as a bedroom, a toilet, a bathroom and three good-sized closets. The view from the balcony was acceptable as well.

All in all, a pretty good place to be and she didn't understand why it hadn't been snagged up earlier by somebody else. But it actually appeared as if the apartment building was mostly empty, when she'd checked out the mailboxes, only one other seemed to be in use of the eight available ones.

She felt her stomach rumble and she muttered a few choice words about despicable old cheap-skate goats. She hadn't thought to pilfer Sarutobi's wallet before she threw him out the window, so she didn't have any money. A quick check of the kitchen revealed nothing of interest either. She now understood why sensei had requested that she show up early, she was apparently supposed to have furnished and stocked the apartment during the course of the day.

"Bloody old man..." Tsunade muttered and pressed a hand over her stomach as it growled in protest over the fact that she was neglecting it, then perked up as she realized that she could smell food nearby. She followed her nose to the balcony and swerved her head around to pinpoint the direction the scent was coming from, eventually realizing that it came from her only neighbour who'd left his kitchen window open.

She hastily left and locked her apartment, then strode over to her neighbours door, knocking firmly on it a couple of times.

When her neighbour failed to materialize soon enough to suit the impatient neo-young woman, she knocked again, causing the door to rattle significantly in it's frame as she applied some of her considerable strength to it.

She heard somebody move inside and tapped her foot impatiently, before the door was opened and she came face to face with...

Nothing.

She blinked and then lowered her eyes, her gaze settling on a short blonde brat with the worst sense of fashion she'd ever come across.

At least as far as she could clearly remember.

"Yeah?" the kid inquired, faintly suspicious and somewhat apprehensively, she thought.

"Hey, kid. Are your parents home?" she asked and blinked in surprise as she saw a flash of pain in his face, before it was schooled to neutrality.

"I don't have any." was the brusque reply.

"Oh. Sorry. Your guardian?" she inquired.

"I don't have any." he repeated.

"Whomever you're living with?" Tsunade amended, a bit of frustration starting to become evident in her voice.

"I live on my own. Whatd'ya want?" the kid responded and Tsunade blinked again. He didn't look old enough to live on his own. He was probably a few years younger then her, she guessed. /Well, a few years younger then I look./ she amended, as she realized that she was actually older then she remembered. Much older, if one counted the time she'd spent unconscious.

Her stomach growled again and she decided to ignore this disturbing fact for more pressing and important matters.

"All right. You wouldn't have happened to have made enough food to treat your starving neighbour to supper? I haven't had time to shop, so my kitchen is empty." Tsunade asked.

"Neighbour?" the kid repeated, as if tasting the word. "I don't have any neighbours." he muttered with a shake of his head, a forlorn expression on his face.

"You do now. I just moved in. I'm Tsunade, you can call me Tsu-chan." she introduced herself with a cutesy smile designed to wear down his defences to her request, only to have her stomach introduce itself as well, with the loudest growl so far. The kid blinked and gazed in surprise at her stomach for a few seconds, before he shrugged.

"If you're sure." he said flippantly and turned around, leaving the door open. She scratched the back of her head at the kid's odd behaviour and after only a moment of hesitation, she entered and closed the door behind her.

"Thanks kid." she said as she kicked off her sandals and followed him to his kitchen. "By the way, what's your name?" she asked and he turned around to stare in surprise at her.

"You don't know who I am?" he asked incredulously, then laughed bitterly. "Yeah, I guess that explains it..." he muttered despondently as he turned around and headed for a cupboard that he opened. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. Beef, pork or miso ramen?"

"Beef. Nice to meetcha, Naruto-kun." she replied and observed as he pulled out a cup of instant ramen, pouring hot water from a kettle on the stove into the container, before handing it to her.

"So you say now..." he muttered under his breath as he seated himself at the kitchen table, but Tsunade's acute hearing picked up on it anyway.

"What's the matter, kid?" she demanded as she sat down on the chair opposite Naruto at the kitchen table, glaring at him as he picked up a half-finished cup of miso ramen and started eating. "I've seen more cheerful people at funerals!"

It took quite a lot of prodding, wheedling and outright demands, backed up with threats of physical violence in combination with a demonstration of her strength, before she got the answer to that one.

And she didn't like what she heard, not one bit.

* * *

Tsunade spent quite a bit of time around Naruto in the weeks that followed, trying to figure him out as she ever so slowly got to know him. She'd apparently caught him at a bad time when they first met, because those morose moods were extremely rare.

Whenever she followed him around without him knowing, practising on her old skills and relearning half-remembered stealth techniques, he was this incredibly hyper-energetic kid who bounced from place to place, always with a cheerful smile on his face and a prank at the ready. She soon saw through it for the attention-getter it most probably was, he was so starved for any attention other then hate, that he took it in whichever form he could get it. Open anger was apparently preferable to silent hate in his eyes.

When the two of them actually spent time together, he was somewhat calmer, but still more hyper then anyone she could recall ever meeting. His mouth was only rarely shut, seemingly capable of endless babble. But once she got a word in, he listened attentively to what she had to say. She wasn't safe from his pranks, however. Just yesterday, she'd been taking a nap on the balcony and woken up as he stuffed a still living fish down the back of her neck.

She'd chased him down the moment the fish had been extracted and that particular prank had earned him a free trip with Air Tsunade to the top of the Hokage monument.

He was a Nin in training, which pleased her, though she had to wonder just what the fuck was up at the academy. He was an incredibly talented and quick learner, which didn't mesh at all with how astonishingly incompetent he was. But after hearing how all his teachers other then 'Iruka-sensei' had ignored him, never replied to his questions, refused to show him things or guide him through exercises, she started to gain a better understanding of just how this had come to pass.

Heck, the kid hadn't even gotten any textbooks or scrolls until he wound up being taught by this Iruka-fellow. He had an astonishing amount of them that he'd picked up at antique shops, copied from the few non-enemies he had in his age group and wherever. Most of them were completely useless fakes, but as he hadn't anybody around to tell him that before, he hadn't been aware of it and had wasted an awful lot of time on non-existing techniques.

When she'd stomped into the Hokage's office to demand more money from her trust fund and explained that the reason for her need for cash was Naruto, he'd told her the entire story about Naruto. Which earned him another trip to the hospital after being shouted at for completely screwing up the kid's life.

When he'd recovered and sent her a sizeable check, she'd gotten Naruto a pile of books, technique scrolls, a Goban and some decent training equipment, then took it upon herself to straighten out the mess that the academy had made of things in his spare time.

She herself had nothing but spare time, which she mostly spent by training on her own. She had sought out those of her old friends that were still alive, which weren't many.

However...

She didn't much enjoy that, all of them had changed so much that she didn't know them any longer. She too was different from how they recalled her, she'd lost a decades worth of memories and personal maturity and wasn't the same person they recalled her as. With confusion at both ends of the spectrum, meeting with her old friends was more painful and uncomfortable then anything else, for all involved parties.

Occasional meetings with the old goat were the highlights of her days, he was the only one from her past that it never felt uncomfortable to meet, though his aged appearance always made her start whenever they met. She just couldn't get used to how aged he looked.

Being around Naruto was a welcomed break in the tedious existence she now lived. The kid grated on her nerves, but the times they spent together were mostly fun. Even his constant babble and vehement protests when she taught him anything that he considered useless, were no longer as annoying as they'd once been.

Considering that this kids goal, which he reminded her of at least once an hour whenever she was around him, was to become the Hokage, he had rather peculiar notions of what sort of things were useless knowledge.

She still hadn't managed to convince him that being the Hokage was more then being some super-cool jutsu-library whom everybody respected. He'd been disbelieving when she told him of all the various duties that came with the position and no matter how hard she tried, never made much headway in getting him to understand that.

But since she refused to teach him skills he considered useful unless he learned the 'useless' stuff as well, he reluctantly followed her instructions. Though he never stopped complaining about having to do so.

Two months after she woke up, it was time for the Genin exams. Naruto eventually made it through, though the way he did it, earned him a few scathing words and a slap at the back of his head. He would also become teased for weeks at an end, as Tsunade never let him forget that he'd been tricked into doing something as utterly stupid as stealing a forbidden scroll.

Of course, Sarutobi-sensei was also teased quite a bit when she saw him later in the day, after Naruto had revealed to her that he'd nearly been caught during the theft, but disabled the Hokage with his Sexy no Jutsu.

She'd howled with laughter at that and teasing the old goat for it was just too tempting, which perhaps was the reason for what happened next.

"Run that past me again, will ya?" Tsunade exclaimed in outrage, cracks starting to appear on Sarutobi's desk where her hands had grabbed the edges of it.

"One of the things you always pushed for as you got older, was that Konoha should make a radical reorganisation and change our three-man teams to four-man teams, by including a medic Nin with every team." Sarutobi informed her and she nodded hesitantly, she could dimly recall something of the sort and that it had been important to her, but couldn't recall just why she'd been so adamant about it.

"Makes sense, I guess." she replied hesitantly. "Should increase the success rate and lower our mortality rate." she ventured.

"Yes, it's a sound idea. We've just never had enough medic Nins to do so and the Council has always opposed that notion. But I thought it was time to put your idea to the test. So, I want you to become the fourth member of one of this years three-man Genin teams." he repeated.

"But, I'm a Chunin!" Tsunade protested.

"Well, Jounin if you want to get technical about it." Sarutobi countered. "But thirty years have passed since you fell asleep and forty years since your most clear memories, a lot has changed since then. And you said yourself that you're not quite up to speed yet." he argued and she had to nod reluctantly at that.

Chakra was a mix of physical and spiritual energy. It was very bad if either one was significantly larger then the other. Her physical recovery was more or less complete, but loosing ten years worth of experience and sleeping for thirty, had seriously stunted her spiritual energy, meaning that her Chakra was incredibly unbalanced, making it difficult to control.

It was possible to learn to deal with it, but it'd take time and a lot of effort. Heck, she'd once known nerds who hardly had any physical energy, but spiritual up the wazoo, who had excellent Chakra control. She'd also known jocks who had very little spiritual energy, but physical in ridiculous amounts that still managed to control their Chakra.

She could learn to deal with it, but it'd be easier and better to simply build up her spiritual energy until it matched her physical again.

She could do the easy stuff without any major problems. Henge, Bunshin, Kawarimi, minor elemental jutsu and so on, but she lacked the control for the major stuff. The few medic jutsu's she remembered were impossible for her now, as she couldn't control her Chakra well enough to trust that they'd actually work. They were just too dangerous for her to even attempt until she'd gotten her Chakra under control again.

And the slugs she summoned were pathetic!

She'd managed one that reached up to her knees, but she'd nearly fainted from exhaustion afterwards.

"I guess... But come on! I don't wanna tag along with a group of brats! At least place me with one of the old Genin teams, so I won't have to run around fetching runaway pets and do grocery shopping for some rich saps again! It was bad enough the last time!" Tsunade pleaded.

"The old Genin teams have already learned to work well with each other, adding another member would mess with their teamwork and require a period of adjustment until they're used to having you around. It'd be better to place you with a new team, so that all of you can learn to work together as a group right from the start." Sarutobi argued and Tsunade had to nod reluctantly at that. The old freak was right, he usually was.

"Fine!" she snapped. "But you'd better not have me doing menial tasks for too long, or I'll... I'll... I'll shave off your beard with a rusty razor!"

"That sounds... Unpleasant..." Sarutobi commented with a nervous expression. "However did you come up with that one?"

"What? I... Ugh, I've spent too much time around Naruto." Tsunade grunted.

"Speaking of Naruto..." Sarutobi interjected and Tsunade scowled as she put together two and two.

"I'm ending up on Naruto's team, aren't I?" Tsunade asked and rubbed her temples as the Hokage nodded. She liked the kid well enough in small doses, but if they were going to be on the same team, she'd get him in large doses. But after pondering the matter for a few seconds, she supposed that it'd be better to be around at least somebody that she knew a bit, then a group consisting only of complete strangers. "Fine." she sighed.

"Excellent. You'll be put back on the active rooster as a Genin, but once you've recovered sufficiently, you'll get your promotions without having to take the Chunin and Jounin exams, as you're technically a Jounin already." Sarutobi said, which caused her to sigh and sulk. She didn't have much of a choice, however. With her current problems, she probably wasn't more then Genin-level anyway. Though that would change once she got her Chakra back under control. "Go with Naruto to the academy tomorrow, Iruka-kun and your Jounin leader already knows about this."

"Fine." Tsunade sighed, then perked up a bit as she came to the realization that once she was back on active duty, she'd receive pay checks again. Pay checks that she could add to her spending money. Pay checks that could be used to buy sake. Pay checks that could be used to make it big at the gambling parlours.

Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad after all!

The End! ( For now... )


End file.
